


Triticum turgidum durum

by brigitttt



Series: Ipheion uniflorum [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Communication, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Past Child Sexual Abuse, M/M, POV Laurent (Captive Prince), mild anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 17:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17248256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brigitttt/pseuds/brigitttt
Summary: During a hot summer in Ios, Laurent goes to the store, and returns with grapes, dessert, and troubling reminders.





	Triticum turgidum durum

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after the events of Ipheion uniflorum, but may be read as a stand-alone (if you don't currently have the time/energy to read 40k of natural history museum au). Sorry it's so short lmao but I'm planning to add more works to this series.

It happens for the first time in a while at a corner grocery store in Ios. Laurent and Damen had been lounging at the apartment, attempting to cool off through minimization of movement, and Laurent had, dreamlike, remembered something one of the exhibit builders had said about the heat-mitigating powers of frozen grapes. In a remarkable demonstration of spontaneity, Laurent had left Damen dozing on the floor in front of the couch, written a short note that he placed on the coffee table, and grabbed his keys and wallet. 

Though the air conditioning of the small store is an instant relief, Laurent doesn’t stop to luxuriate, heading directly through the instant rice and canned pasta sauce aisle to the produce section. Illuminated by the overhead fluorescent lighting, the package of green grapes looks to Laurent almost like a religious icon, his heat-addled brain ridiculously imagining a circular halo and benevolent hand. He grins, stupidly but triumphantly, and grabs it off the shelf.

He gets distracted on his way to the till by some galaktoboureko; even though store-bought stuff is sure to be oversweet and unappealingly artificial, Laurent is still tempted by his sweet tooth and the synthetic promise of cool, milky custard. Holding the grapes with one hand, he reaches for the package on the shelf, to probably pretend to deliberate over the ingredient list, but – a child appears at the end of the aisle. 

The boy has dark curly hair, much curlier than Nicaise’s, or even Damen’s, and tanned brown skin, common at this latitude. He’s bounded up to the arrangement of candy bars in childlike carelessness, eyes wide and eager with excitement. Laurent’s about to turn back to the confectionary in front of him when a man’s voice emanates from around the corner, preceding his body, average-sized and thickly bearded. Laurent pauses with the galaktoboureko package in his hand, his torso turned slightly away to mime the act of reading the box, but his eyes lingering on the pair in front of him.

Laurent would like to say that it isn’t the man’s beard, or the full sound of his voice that does it. He would say it isn’t the man’s hand on the boy’s shoulder, the boy’s pleading eyes as he clutches the candy bar, the man’s soft dissuading voice in fluid Patran. Not the looser fit of the boy’s striped shirt, scrunching slightly under the man’s hand, or the child’s dark eyebrows drawing together in disappointment, or how the man pries the candy from the boy’s fingers to put it back on the shelf. It isn’t the man leading the boy away by his hand, small palm smothered. Nor is it the quick, neutral glance the man takes in Laurent’s direction, the plaintive words of the boy becoming muffled in his hearing. He knows, though, he _knows_ what it is, but Laurent blames the summer Akielon heat instead for his sudden dizziness, even inside the cold, circulated air of the store.

He’s still got the grapes and galaktoboureko in his hands, and the first couple steps he takes towards the end of the aisle are the worst. He feels too tall all of a sudden, like a skyscraper swaying in a strong wind, but he also feels incomprehensibly tiny, looking through his own eyes from a distance much further away than normal. The rest of his steps up to the till are careful and deliberate, and he tries to focus his eyes on anything that will make the world stop tilting but it probably makes him look insane instead. He somehow manages to pay for everything and decline a bag – Damen has tons of those reusable cloth bags in the front closet at the apartment but they both forget to bring them along every time – and makes his way out of the store, bracing his purchases against his diaphragm with his arms. 

Laurent welcomes the heat outdoors, now, wonders why he needed the grapes at all in this cosy, atmospheric embrace, and he leans against a lamp post for a second. There are probably any gut-shrivelling number of germs on the metal of it that he would care about in normal circumstances but he closes his eyes instead, willing his brain to stop swimming around inside his skull. He only has one block over and a couple blocks down the hill to get back to the apartment building.

This hasn’t happened in a long while. It was a frequent occurrence in the beginning of college; he was suddenly alone in a new city, and around every corner would be a man with a beard, or a man with a child, and Laurent would be thrown back into the house in Arles, so incapacitated by his fear and shame that he would forget where he was, what he was doing, saying, how to breath. How to not feel phantom touches through the blur of hastily retrieved yet undesired memories. Laurent trained his mind, shakily and slowly, to tune it out, over the years. He knows, logically, that these are just fathers with their children, men growing beards for personal style. The odds are so slim, but even that doesn’t make him feel better; he knows, with an excruciating crush of weight on his chest that he must have looked exactly the same to someone else. Laurent, in a painstakingly well-practiced manner, swiftly compartmentalizes all the times he had been out in public with his uncle, holding his hand and sitting in restaurant chairs, feet swinging above the floor, his uncle cutting his food for him; strangers complimenting his uncle on Laurent’s good manners. 

Laurent breathes it all out into the heat of the afternoon, heavy through his mouth. He’s starting to feel the weight of the sun now, after standing outside for a couple minutes. There’s sweat accumulating on his back under his shirt, and he’s crushed the package of grapes a little against his chest. He staggers the two blocks down the hill, still slightly dizzy.

Damen’s up and at the kitchen counter when Laurent makes it into the apartment, throwing his shoes off at the door and stomping over. He’s still off balance, the climb upstairs didn’t help the vertiginous feeling. Laurent tosses everything onto the counter, even his keys, and crashes into Damen’s side. He feels arms come around him slowly.

“Got your note, frozen grapes sound amazing,” says Damen quietly in Veretian. He shifts a little, leaning slightly. Laurent locks his own hands around Damen’s back and pushes his face further into his big shoulder. “Oh, galaktoboureko too,” Damen says, and the Akielon word slides so silkily out of his mouth, much less inelegant than the mess of consonants Laurent had been saying in his head. A hand smooths down his back, gently but solidly, the way Damen knows Laurent likes. Laurent turns his head to look through squinted eyes at the warm brown of Damen’s neck above the collar of his t-shirt; there’s a drip of sweat slowly descending from his hairline that Laurent follows with his eyes.

Damen’s smarter than he looks, and doesn’t let go of Laurent to put the grapes in the freezer, instead shuffling them both over to the fridge. He also doesn’t ask why Laurent is so clingy, even though it’s clear that they’re both overheating from it. They stand silently in the middle of the kitchen for a minute longer after everything’s put away, and then Laurent shifts so that the tip of his nose is touching Damen’s neck. Damen squirms.

“You’re like a dog,” he says with a laugh, and Laurent smiles into his skin. He places the lightest brush of lips on the hot spot over Damen’s jugular and pulls away. He sits on the barstool on the other side of the faux marble counter, and Damen leans on his elbows across from him, settling in like an iron ball onto foam. He must know Laurent’s trying to build up the energy to say something important, and Laurent loves him for it, but he still wishes there was some way to make talking about things easier. He takes his time, because Damen deserves to know and Laurent wants to be coherent with this.

“There was . . . something I saw at the store,” Laurent starts, eyes averted. When he looks up, Damen seems curious and encouraging, and Laurent reaches over to hold his warm hand between them on the counter, the sun beating down through the gap of the curtains pulled across the open balcony door, gulls calling faintly from somewhere overhead. Beyond the reach of hearing, there’s the steady roll of heavy waves against the weathered white limestone of the cliffs.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at brigitttt (personal) and/or brigittttoo (side with writing), and newly on twitter @brigitttt_ . Comments are much appreciated, thank you for reading!


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